EVERY so often in every field, an idea comes along that is so simple yet so clever that you wonder why no one ever thought of it before.

In the appropriately named Dave Brain’s case, he has not exactly invented the wheel.

But what he has done is reinvent the spare – that solid and dependable piece of gear that sometimes lay untouched in the boot of the car for the lifetime of the vehicle.

Dave laughed: “The RAC challenged me to come up with something and because I am a tool designer, the worst thing you could say to me is, ‘I don’t think this can be done.’

“And that’s what they told me and then asked me to have a look at it.

“It took me a long time working on it. There was no eureka moment – it was just through trial and error, often experimenting with wheels on my own car.”

What Dave has done is tickle the grey matter and come up with a solution that will finally stop our roadside services from prematurely pulling out their hair.

The Dynomec universal spare wheel will fit 85 per cent of cars and the RAC have just ordered 1500 of them. It is not the first time he has come up with an innovative design.

In the 80s, just before he set up his Dynomec business, he invented his locking wheel nut removal kit, which has become an absolute basic in all roadside assistance patrols. And his universal spare wheel is about to become another.

Many of us will remember with affection the sturdy spare that, unfortunately for its sins, weighed in at between 25-30kg. And for a long time it was illegal not to carry one.

But in recent years, car manufacturers have been faced with European targets and guidelines insisting that they drive down new car CO2 emissions and they need to lose weight to do that.

Each brand has been innovating and introducing increasingly sophisticated vehicles to meet the 2015 target of 130g/km of emissions and then the 2020 goal of just 95g.

Lighter materials such as aluminium and carbon fibre are becoming the standard throughout the industry and any way manufacturers can find to lose some extra kilos, they will take it.

And so the spare wheel went.

To replace it, we got the space-saver. That made us a little nervous but it did work, although it looked remarkably silly on certain cars. But the final straw was the tyre inflation kit.

RAC patrol team manager James Fox, who works out of Falkirk and whose beat is central Scotland, summed it up.

He said: “When I would go out to a puncture and they handed me a space-saver, my heart would sink but I would put it on and the car could get to the local tyre depot.

“But recently my heart would sink even further when I turned up at a puncture and they just handed me a pot of glue.

“Some punctures or a complete blowout cannot be fixed with a tyre sealant system and so we were having to put these cars on trailers and take them to a tyre retailer.”

Up to the end of last month, the RAC had attended 125,000 breakdowns involving a puncture without a spare, a massive increase from 2012 when the figure for the year stood at 87,000 – and the problem, as the RAC saw it, was only going to get worse. It was adding more cost to their operation, which would end up getting passed on to the motorist.

Something had to be done and that is where Dave entered the picture.

He explained: “We started out with old steel car wheels, chopping them up and making rough prototypes.

“Eventually, I got it down to a possible one – it’s an aluminium wheel that fits 85 per cent of cars.

“It’s just like the wheels you have on most cars now. We went down the steel route first of all but the vans have weight issues, so we needed a lighter alternative, which is why we chose aluminium.”

He went on: “It’s a five-stud 17in multi-fit wheel that will cut down time spent by drivers at the roadside often in potentially dangerous situations, such as the hard shoulder of the motorway.

“For example, you’ll get a Mercedes A-Class that’s got five studs and 112 pcd and then a Nissan that will be 114.3 pcd. What we have done is cover 10 different pcds, which is all that’s out there, and we range from 98 pcd all the way through to 120 pcd.

“You have nine sets of washers covering 10 different pcds.”

And he is now experimenting with the second generation of the universal wheel.

The RAC are delighted with Dave’s wheel, which means that hopefully it will be the end of most cars with punctures being put on a trailer. Instead, patrollers will put on the Dynomec universal wheel, which will get motorists to their nearest ATS depot.

There, they will fit a normal tyre, take the RAC one from the motorist and then send it back through various channels to go out on the road again.

Phil Ryan, of the RAC, said: “We understand why manufacturers need to reduce the weight of their vehicles in order to make them more fuel-efficient and to meet EU carbon dioxide emission targets. But drivers should not suffer as a result and, in order to minimise the disruption and inconvenience, the universal spare wheel provides options for patrols to deal with breakdowns more quickly and efficiently.”

It has been a labour of love for Dave, who started off as a toolmaker by trade and now has his own small business in West Yorkshire.

And so successful has his spare wheel been in trials on the road with the RAC that they have come across a problem they had not envisaged.

Dave laughed: “There is a little bit of an issue with customers wanting to keep hold of the tyres rather than giving them back, which we are just sorting out just now.

“They like the idea of having a spare and a spare that will fit any car.

“So we are working on it at the moment and in the future they should be able to buy them through the RAC.

“But that is a problem that we hadn’t expected to come across – although it’s fortunately an easy enough one to fix.”